To an increasing extent, the determination of analytes in blood is carried out by patients themselves without consulting a physician, the use of test strips thereby having proved to be especially suitable. A prerequisite for the success of such systems used by the patients is the satisfactory function of the test strips, as well as a simple handling thereof. Objective results which are independent of the person carrying out the determination can, in practice, only be obtained by means of a measurement device.
In the case of monitoring the lipid state, the direct determination of the cholesterol concentration by the patients is being increasingly employed. For this purpose, diagnostic agents are generally used which contain the reagents necessary for the detection in the form of a film on a test strip. The production of such a reagent film is described, for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 4,312,834 the entire disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference.
However, because of the great temperature dependency of biochemical reactions, there is a marked dependency of most detection reactions used in clinical chemistry on the temperature of the surroundings. Therefore, for the avoidance of temperature-dependent falsifications of the analytical results, working is generally carried out at a constantly maintained temperature, for example by means of a tempered adaptor of the measurement device. However, for the success of such systems used by the patients, it is desirable to have a measurement device which is as small as possible and which is also inexpensive. However, only a very approximate and insufficient tempering of the test carrier is possible with such small devices.
Therefore, it is an object of the present invention to provide diagnostic agents for the substantially temperature-independent determination of cholesterol. Further objects and advantages achieved by the present invention will become readily apparent to persons skilled in the art from the following discussion.